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Wednesday, December 31, 2008

SNOWBOUND

They are forecasting another snow storm here and it might
make this the snowiest December on record for the Boston
area.

It put me in mind of "Snowbound", a poem by John Greenleaf
Whittier that I had to read at some point at St Mathew's
Parochial School in Dorchester when I was a kid. It's a long
poem, but these lines from the first verse seem to suit
how December has been this year:

"The sun that brief December day
Rose cheerless over hills of gray,
And, darkly circled, gave at noon
A sadder light than waning moon.
Slow tracing down the thickening sky
Its mute and ominous prophecy,
A portent seeming less than threat,
It sank from sight before it set.
A chill no coat, however stout,
Of homespun stuff could quite shut out,
A hard, dull bitterness of cold,
That checked, mid-vein, the circling race
Of life-blood in the sharpened face,
The coming of the snow-storm told."

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